house from a window of the common room in
the uncomfortable inn, and was wondering
whether the town had grown round the house, or
whether the proprietor could have selected so
peculiarly uninteresting a spot on which to build.
As I looked at it, a voice said :

"Amazingly fine house that, sir!"

I turned, and found I was addressed by a
man who had come into the room unobserved
by me, and on whose face and person the smoke
of the place had produced much the same
effect as on the ugly building we were both
looking at; but there was something pleasant
under his smoky exterior, and I answered,
in deference to his admiration: " Yes, it seems
a large house. What is the name of its
proprietor?" A gleam of pleasure passed over his
face at my seeming to take an interest in it, and
he repeated, " Ah! 'tis a splendid place that;
we used to have pleasure-parties there, we from
the factory, when the old squire was alive; but
this one, this Henry North, he ain't any of that
sort; he knows the inside of his place, and the
colour of his money, but he don't care nowise
that others should know more of either than
he can help. I could tell you a little sort of a
tale about that place, sir."

He took off his comforter and great-coat, and
in his working factory dress came and sat by me.

That house, sir, was there forty years ago,
but not as you see it now; it was then a small
white cottage: a pretty little cottage, too, with
vines growing up it, and hanging over the eaves
of the roof. 'Twas Mr. North lived there, and
he had been a factory hand, just as I am; but
he was as clever as he was good; and all he
did, prospered. When he first bought the little
place we thought as he would turn proud to us,
but not a bit on it; he used to say that he
would deserve to lose all the good things God
had given him, if he could render no better
account of them than that they made him high to
those who had been his friends. Well; he seemed
to turn all he touched into gold, and he built
factory after factory, until he became so rich
that he built that amazing big house. He was
a widower then, but his wife had never been one
of his sort. She was ashamed to speak to any
of us who had known them before they became
gentry, and I have often seen a look of pain on
his face as she has rode past any of us in her
carriage, with a haughty toss of her pretty head.
One day he told us he was like to become a
father, and he hoped, if his child was spared,
he would grow up to do good to those who had
been less fortunate than himself.

A few weeks after that, we saw one of the
grooms riding furiously away, and in two hours
he returned with the most eminent doctor in all
Lancashire, but it was too late. A few moments
after Mr. North had held his son in his arms,
Mr. North was a widower.

The young squire, Master Henry, was a great
interest to us, and many a prayer was uttered
that he might grow up to be like his father; but
his nurses taught him pride before he knew his
letters; if any of us so much as kissed his hand,
they would say, " You must not get talking with
such people as those, Master Henry," or some
such remark.

There's another pretty place just below there,
sir. You can see it if you just lean forward and
ook to the left; that's Mr. Wickham's paper-
mill. We believed as Mr. Wickham was making
a fortune by it, judging from the way he lived;
and he thought it quite a condescension when Mr.
North came to build this fine house, and he took
to visiting him; but on his death he was found
to be so in debt that his goods were seized, and
there was a talk of little Miss Mabel being sent
to the Orphan Asylum. This, Mr. North said,
should never happen to the child as long as he
had a roof to cover him. And he took Miss
Mabel to be brought up as his own daughter.

She was the sweetest fair-haired little creature
as ever I saw, and she has grown up to be as
lovely and as innocent as a spring flower.
Many's the time we have blessed her as she
has gone past our houses, carrying her little
basket with chicken, or jelly, or what not, for
any of us as was sick. She seemed like any
Angel coming among us; and that, not for what
she brought, but because of the light and life
that seemed to spring forth from her every look
and word.

One day she meets me, and she says:
"John, I am not happy about my father (she
always called him her father); he looks worn
and pale, but when I speak of it to him he only
smiles, and says, ' There's not much the matter
with the old man yet, little one.' And when
the smile is gone, the look of pain returns, and
he lies back listlessly in his arm-chair, with none
of the old energy m his look." As she was
speaking, a young man — Jem Wright—came
out from a cottage behind us, and, catching the
last words, he says: " If he goes from among
us, his example ought to remain; for was he
not one of ourselves once, and did he not live to
be a blessing to all around him!"

"What?" called a voice from the door of
the cottage, out of which the young man had
come. " Don't speak of blessings to me! Few
blessings enough have l ever knowed, and since
you took to fooling away all your money on that
rubbishy thing that stands in the corner, I
ain't got none of the comforts as a poor lone
widow woman should expect from her son."

He moved angrily, as if to walk away;
but the sight of the lovely figure that was
just leaving us seemed to stop him, and he
said, more as if he was thinking aloud than
speaking to me: " When the minister says
in church, ' They shall be like the angels in
Heaven,' I wonder if they can be more beautiful
than she is." As he was speaking, he turned
to his mother, and with a bright smile answered
her querulous complaint by saying, " Well,
mother, you can't complain, now, of that rubbishy
thing as you call it, for, since your illness, I
have denied myself the greatest pleasure of my
life, and my poor little model has remained
untouched."